The Netherlands has great infrastructure for cycling, so much so that I'm wondering if taking the lane for turning left like I would in a place like the United States is discouraged or prohibited, especially when the bike lane is protected. Here is an example:
The normal way to do this seems to be to stay in the protected bike lane, stop at A, press the button, wait for the bike light, then cross the street and make a hard left to press the button at B, and wait for the light again, then cross. Occasionally I see cyclists (usually people on street bikes) actually go into the street and take the left lane (actually probably the right-hand left turn lane where the car is). I feel like this is discouraged because I don't see many people do it, especially commuters, however there are issues with the A/B route.
When there is a lot of traffic it can take a considerable amount of time to wait for two lights. (Although sometimes both lines turn at the same time which makes it better)
More importantly, when it is necessary to wait at B there is barely room for a single bike to squeeze between the bike between the oncoming lane and the street:
When car traffic is delaying the light there is also frequently a lot of bike traffic, meaning that if there are more than one or two cyclists waiting at B then it impedes the flow of traffic trying to continuing through A and past B.
There are other issues with taking the lane, namely that due to the protected lane it would be necessary to enter the street at the previous intersection a hundred meters or so behind the picture. This may be harder to do exactly at the times you would want to do it most. However there are other cases where the lane is not protected until right before the light and these would be easier to merge into traffic, especially when there are fewer lanes.
n.b. strangely there does not seem to be a "netherlands" tag.
